Elinore Pruitt Stewart (1876–1933)

Written in a warm chatty style, Letters of a Woman Homesteader paints an interesting picture of homesteading in Wyoming in the early 1900’s. The author, a widow with a young child, takes on the role of housekeeper on a ranch while at the same time files her own claim on land that adjoins this ranch. To prove her claim she plants and grows vegetables and makes some basic improvements on the property. She marries the rancher and all the while continues to write letters to her friend in show more Denver describing her life.

With both humor and insight she describes her day to day activities and that of her neighbours. This isn’t an easy life, they are miles from any town or railroad and have to learn to be self-sufficient in many areas, including medicine. Even going to a neighbours for a dinner party means a long overnight camping trip to get there. Yet even while living such an isolated life, her letters portray her love of life and nature. Her prose is simple and heartfelt, and her descriptions of the natural world that surround her allow the reader to feel part of that world as well.

Eleanor Pruitt Stewart was a strong, independent woman, as I imagine most women who homesteaded had to be. When there wasn’t a minister available for a funeral service, she went ahead and conducted the services for her new-born son herself. But beyond having this core of steel, she was a woman who found the place she was meant to be. “I love the flicker of an open fire, the smell of the pines, the pure, sweet air, and I went to sleep thinking how blest I was to be able to enjoy the things I love most.” An enjoyable read. show less

Oh to have such a pen pal as Elinore Stewart! Her collected letters describe the wilds and hard work of pioneer life in Wyoming, seen through her optimistic and generous gaze, with such fresh and vibrant delight. I wish she were my friend.

These letters written for an audience of one exhibit a love of beauty and unconsciously winsome style that moved me to underline often. Elinore claims she is not educated, but her wisdom and love of writing fully compensate for any lack of formal schooling. show more Elinore has a gift for turn of phrase, robust love of life and self-sufficiency, as well as positive self-image and a friendly heart that made me smile with every page.

I want to live with the same openness, gratitude, and curiosity.

"...when you get among such grandeur you get to feel how little you are and how foolish is human endeavor, except that which unites us with the mighty force called God. I was plumb uncomfortable, because all my own efforts have always been just to make the best of everything and to take things as they come."

"... I am the luckiest woman in finding really lovely people and having really lovely experiences."

"I get myself all ready to enjoy a success and find that I have to fit a failure. But one consolation is that I generally have plenty of material to cut generously, and many of my failings have proved to be real blessings."

"When you think of me, you must think of me as one who is truly happy. It is true I want a great things I haven't got, but I don't want them enough to be discontented and not enjoy the many blessings that are mine."

"Do you wonder I am so happy? When I think of it all, I wonder how I can crowd all my joy into one short life." show less

”To me, homesteading is the solution of all poverty’s problems, but I realize that temperament has much to do with success in any undertaking, and persons afraid of coyotes and work and loneliness had better let ranching alone. At the same time, any woman who can stand her own company, can see the beauty of the sunset, loves growing things and is willing to put in as much time at careful labor as she does over the washtub, will certainly succeed; will have independence, plenty to eat all show more the time, and a home of her own in the end.”

Elinor Pruitt takes her future into her own hands and heads to Wyoming with her young daughter. While proving up her own homestead, she keeps house and cooks for the bachelor at the next homestead, in this way making an income meantime. Her letters back home to her friend are full of the beauties of her surroundings, and accounts of encounters with neighbors, Mormons, wild creatures, and weather. The saved letters cover her years in Wyoming from 1909-1913. I would love to have letters such as these in my family history. They are full of emotion and fact and held me rapt for the duration of the book.

”Did you ever eat pork and beans heated in a frying-pan on a camp-fire for breakfast? Then if you have not, there is one delight left you. But you must be away out in Wyoming, with the morning sun just gilding the distant peaks, and your pork and beans must be out of a can, heated in a disreputable old frying-pan, served with coffee boiled in a battered old pail and drunk from a tomato-can. ” show less

Letters of a Woman Homesteader hits close to my heart. My husband and I farm the land that his grand-parents first homestead in the 1910’s. I was not born here but I immigrated from Brazil close to 25 years ago. It was, and in some ways still is, a very hard adaptation to rural life and Canadian winters. I often think of those women pioneers that braved this land without the amenities I have: indoor plumbing, electricity, cars, phones, internet. Their stories and bravery is still part of show more the local lore: the neighbor lady who was the midwife; the grandmother who took a hammer and destroyed her brother’s moonshine setup; the feeding of dozens of men while those crews harvested the land; on and on…

Elinore Pruitt Stewart adds another dimension to the experience of these women, that of feminism. Elinore certainly never rationalized it this way, but her approach to homesteading and farming was that it could raise women above the poverty and hard labour of the cities:

When I read of the hard times among the Denver poor, I feel like urging them every one to get out and file on land. I am very enthusiastic about women homesteading. It really requires less strength and labour to raise plenty to satisfy a large family than it does to go out to wash, with the added satisfaction of knowing that their job will not be lost to them if they care to keep it.

Then, in another passage, she says:

Any woman who can stand her own company, can see the beauty of the sunset, loves growing things, and is willing to put in as much time and careful labor as she does over the washtub, can certainly succeed.

In her discourse one can also see the seeds of the more recent trend of returning to nature and agriculture as a mean to connect mankind to the land.

But if the passages I mention sound a bit preachy, the bulk of the letters are a colorful chronicle of the place and people she meets and often befriends. Elinore is poetic at times, describing sunsets and sunrises or early snow, and shows a strength of character to border the insufferable: when no minister or priest was available, she conduct the funeral service for her new-born son.

I am so happy these letters were saved and printed. No, they are not highly literary, but they bear witnesses to a whole generation of pioneers and their boldness. show less